by Tom Wilde
Caitlin and I moved through the enormous cathedral, hurrying under the magnificent dome and down the grand hallway to the large black double doors, which Rhea had left ajar. We could now hear the two-tone sounds of multiple emergency sirens. Once outside and into the clean, rain-washed air, I spotted a dense plume of black smoke, lit underneath in a baleful red, billowing over the neighboring buildings while blue-flashing police cars blocked off the street.
Caitlin and I exchanged rueful glances—under the streetlights we were going to appear like escapees from Pompeii—but it looked like all the local attention was being drawn up the street away from the church. Caitlin offered me the gun; she obviously had nowhere to conceal it. I let my belt out a notch and stuck the pistol in my waistband, hoping all its internal safety devices were in good working order. I then tucked the old wooden box under one arm and offered Caitlin my other. She smiled, in that secretive way of hers, and accepted. The two of us crossed the courtyard of Val de Grâce like tourists out for a stroll. “Think we’ll find a taxi this late at night?” I asked quietly.
“No need,” she answered. “Just get me to a phone, and I’ll make contact with someone who can get us out of here.”
“Would that someone be your Mr. Smith?”
Caitlin nodded. “Yes, how did you know?”
“Well … I had a little run-in with him earlier. He was all set to leave without you, so I had to convince him otherwise.”
“Convince him how?”
“Let’s just say he was tied up for a bit tonight. But he’s fine. Really.”
“You did that to Smith? Damn, boy. You really are good,” she said with a small shake of her head. I scanned the area ahead and saw Ombra’s van hadn’t moved. I hoped he’d just abandoned it, as I didn’t think I could handle one more strenuous encounter tonight. As Caitlin and I slipped through the front gate and started walking up the street away from the fire, a wave of exhaustion washed over me. Just a little while longer, I promised myself, until you can go roll up in a ball somewhere. That’s when a long black limousine passed us, unusual in this city full of tiny toy vehicles. I felt a slapping sting as something hit me on my back and spread like liquid ice up to my brain.
I didn’t even care when the ground leapt up and hit me.
PART II
I know how, when it is necessary, to leave the skin of the lion and take that of the fox.
—NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Terra Incognita
I was trapped in a nightmare world of shifting lights and riotous noise, suffused with scents that ranged from jet fuel to jasmine, until I finally fell out of the kaleidoscope and calliope world and down into a dark hole. After a measureless span of fractured time, the world turned a deep, soft blue.
My senses seemed to come back online one at a time. My eyes still couldn’t focus, but I was definitely seeing a diffuse aqua-colored glow around the edge of my vision. Close by, I could hear the sound of water, like a small stream falling over stones, and a familiar scent of jasmine was strong in the warm, humid atmosphere. Eventually I was able to move my head a bit, only to find that I was on a cushioned couch, bound with thick leather straps. Worse, I was naked.
The rising panic helped clear my mind. I rolled my head to the left, fighting a wave of nausea, and I could see I was near a small pool of water that had its own running waterfall. It was like being in a cross between a Japanese bathhouse and an underground grotto. “Mr. Blake,” I head a musical, feminine voice say. “Whatever am I to do with you?”
It was Rhea.
I turned my head to the right, slowly so as not to shake my soggy brains loose, and saw her standing there. She had transformed herself into a vision of a Greek goddess, with her raven-black hair piled high, and wearing a long, white gown, falling from one shoulder and belted in silver. In the blue lighting she appeared to glow.
“Where am I?” I managed to whisper from a desiccated throat and a mouth that tasted of old ashes.
She seemed to float as she came toward me. She smiled as she said softly, “You are now where no one will ever find you.”
“What do you want? And where’s Caitlin?”
She didn’t reply, and instead started walking down the length of the couch, slowly shaking her head as she surveyed my body like a suspicious buyer of dubious merchandise. As she circled the couch, her hand reached out and with the nail of her forefinger she began tracing the paths of my scars, sending electric trills running through me. She said, almost absently, “We know your secret. We know who you really are.”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back down; it was almost too much effort to hold it up. I then felt Rhea’s face close to mine as she whispered, “I have a secret too, Mr. Blake.” Before I could respond, Rhea placed her finger to my dried lips and said more loudly, “Vanya wants to see you. But we can’t have you looking like this, now, can we?”
I opened my eyes, but Rhea had moved out of view. I tried to get a better look at my surroundings, but the blue light from above acted like a curtain, rendering everything beyond a few feet opaque blackness. The pool and waterfall close by looked like they had been cut into native rock. There was a small rattling sound behind my head, and Rhea’s hands came in from behind and started massaging a warm, sweet-smelling substance on my cheek and neck. “There,” she cooed. “Doesn’t that feel better?”
Despite myself, I felt my muscles start to unkink; I’d been chafing and straining against the straps that confined me. Rhea continued to massage my face and neck, and I actually closed my eyes. Even through the silky liquid, I could feel how strong her hands were—hands that were capable of dangerous deeds. Her hands went away, and when I opened my eyes, I suddenly wished I hadn’t. Rhea was leaning down close to my face, holding a thin, deadly knife that caught a spark of blue light on its razor edge. Her large black eyes narrowed as her smile grew wider, and she brought the edge of the blade delicately against my throat. “You wouldn’t lie to me at a time like this, would you?” she said with a low, throaty laugh.
My head involuntarily arched back and my breath caught in my throat. Then she smoothly ran the razor’s edge up my neck in a slow stroke. When the blade came away, I whispered, “I could probably manage to shave myself, you know.”
“But where would the fun in that be?” she replied with mock petulance. “Does your wife know about your secret life?”
Rhea was making no sense, but her words made me feel like I was treading in deep, dangerous water. With a knife to my throat, no less. I just made a small shake of my head before Rhea started moving the knife down my left cheek. “Do you ever get lonely?” she asked. “Having to keep all those secrets locked up inside yourself all the time?”
Rhea finished her stroke, then she slid herself on top of me, straddling my body. I could feel the heat of her. She brought her mouth and the razor close to my head and whispered, “There are cameras and microphones everywhere. I’m an operative also. Koancho. Department Two. I’m on your side.”
Except for the fact that she told me we were under surveillance, I had no idea what the hell Rhea was talking about, but at the moment, my traitorous body didn’t care. Rhea felt my involuntary response, and she gave a little laugh of pleasure, or maybe it was satisfaction of conquest. “We’re two of a kind, you and I,” she whispered hotly in my ear. “We should join together. Tell Vanya everything he wants to hear, and we’ll get through all this together.”
I wasn’t about to disagree with a woman who could kill me with the flick of her wrist, until she said in my ear, “I was sent to seduce you.”
Everything stopped for a moment, and Rhea rose up until I could see her face. She wore the same smile I saw right after I had seen her kill two men. “I want to see Caitlin,” I said, loud enough for anyone listening to hear.
Rhea’s breath went in with a hiss, and for a flash of time, I saw her lip curl, then her mask of self-possession slipped back into place and she said, “Are you certain that�
�s what you want?” I just nodded, once. Rhea regarded me from above, with an almost pitying look, then she brought the knife to my face and finished the job of shaving me like a surgeon performing a routine operation. All I could do was try to not flinch as the razor slid across my skin. When she finished and dismounted the couch, the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding in came out all at once.
Rhea brought a warm, moist towel and ran it across my face, whispering as she did so, “Be careful when you meet Vanya, and you and that wife of yours just may make it out alive. But don’t even think you’ll be able to escape from here without my help.” She then moved along the side of the couch and I felt the bands restricting me loosen. Louder, she said, “Good-bye, Mr. Blake. I trust you can manage on your own for a while.” And with that, she was gone.
I tried to sit up and leave the couch, but mostly I just rolled off, catching myself before I fell all the way to the floor. I was still dazed and confused from the drugs. Now that I could move my head freely, I saw that I was inside a cave of dark rock that had been furnished like a spa. When my legs regained some mobility, I lurched over to the nearest wall and used the rough stone as support to move around the confines. I turned a corner into a tiled enclosure big enough to park a full-sized truck in. The moment I took another step, brilliant white light poured down from above, making me squeeze my eyes shut in self-defense. When my flash blindness cleared, I saw I was standing in front of a bathroom arrangement that’d be the envy of your common-variety millionaire.
The place was lined with mirrors, and I almost jumped when I saw the guy whose upper face, head, and hands looked like they’d been cast in dirty plaster. I headed straight for a shower area that was large enough to accommodate a party of four comfortably, and as soon as I puzzled out the plumbing, was basking in the middle of a barrage of blessedly warm, clean water. For a guy like me who spends a lot of his working life in deserts, jungles, or stuck on crowded boats at sea with limited water, this was paradise on earth. I massaged the strained muscles of my right leg and carefully probed my damaged ribs. I now sported a pair of roughly circular bruises on my side, one from where I’d landed on the bronze eagle on my trip off the roof at Troyon’s apartment, and the other where I’d caught the bullet. My ribs weren’t broken, but they felt as cracked as a cheap mirror.
I’d have been content to spend the day under the water, but I caught a scent of overpowering attractiveness: coffee. I reluctantly shut off the water and found a set of white, luxuriously made towels along with a full-sized bathrobe and a selection of slippers. I followed my nose out of the bathroom and back into the blue-lit cave, where I saw someone had placed a selection of meats, cheeses, and breads along with carafes of coffee and water on a marble table. I drained the lemon-flavored water, and savored the rich Sumatra coffee. My stomach told me that it probably wouldn’t send any offerings back, and I tried a selection of the foods, noticing that someone had neglected to provide any tableware.
I had just finished with refueling when I heard a masculine and oddly accented voice from behind me say, “Mr. Blake? Please come with me.” The owner of the voice was a young, dark-skinned man wearing an outfit of short-sleeved shirt and knee-length pants that looked like a tropical military uniform, an impression fortified by the black nylon gun belt that supported a large, holstered pistol and the sturdy-looking hiking shoes he wore. The man himself had a broad-featured face and jet-black hair cut close to his skull. In the bluish light his smile was as dazzling as his uniform. I placed my coffee cup down and said, “I’m not quite dressed for company.”
His smile stayed fixed and frozen on his face as he held out an ushering arm. I belted my robe more tightly and walked in the indicated direction. The cave wall had a tunnel carved through that took an abrupt right-hand turn, finally terminating about twenty feet ahead at a door that retracted into the wall when I approached, flooding the tunnel with bright sunshine. I had to guard my eyes as I stepped outside, but when I could see again, I had to wonder if I wasn’t hallucinating.
I was near the mouth of a much larger cave, one the size of a commercial airplane hangar, that had a waterfall pouring down like a curtain. Within the cave there were an assortment of pools set into a marble floor—a working, semi-enclosed Roman bath. I was busy gawking at the architecture when the guide, or guard, took me by the arm and gently pulled me away to a set of steps cut out of the rock that led around the waterfall to the outside, where I was treated to another impressive vista. I found myself in daylight and standing before an enclosed courtyard, bordered on three sides by ivory-colored six-story buildings that all had balconies spaced at regular intervals. The courtyard itself was a garden adorned with marble statuary that gave the appearance of a giant-sized chess set. The sun was low in the sky, hovering over the structure to my right, bathing the garden in a reddish hue, and the air was warm and rich with the scent of unseen olive and pine trees. In the center of the garden was a long, marble table set beneath a white stone roof supported by Ionic columns, with a dais and throne at the center. My thoughts flew back to New York, where Caitlin had told me about Vanya’s own private island. I don’t think you’re in Paris anymore, I thought. My escort took my arm and guided me to the table, toward the man sitting upon the throne.
He was dressed in a snow-white robe that matched his long hair and beard and contrasted with his strong-featured, bronze-tanned face. Rhea was standing to his right with her arm on the high back of the throne, and on the other side was a tall, muscular African who looked like he was carved out of obsidian, dressed in a uniform that matched my escort’s, right down to the pistol belt. The man on the throne rose to his feet as I approached, and with a deep, rich, orator’s voice he said, “Mr. Blake, welcome to Cronos Island. My name is Vanya. Please be seated. We have much to discuss.”
On my side of the table was a backless marble chair with a cushion, and I sat down while trying to keep my robe decorously closed. I said, “You can start by explaining what I’m doing here. And telling me where Caitlin is.”
Vanya regained his throne, a Zeus upon his Olympus. “Your wife is here, Mr. Blake,” he said. “And in good health, although she’s been quite worried about you. You will see her soon, I assure you.”
“Great. How about now?”
Vanya held up his hand. “Not so fast. There are a few things we need to talk about first.”
“Such as?”
Vanya leaned forward, fixing me with his deep, dark eyes. “Such as why the United States government sent an agent against me. Was it to assassinate me?”
“What are you talking about? I’m not a government agent.”
And with that, Vanya laughed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was written that they whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. So here I was sitting in an Olympian garden with a man who fashioned himself into the likeness of a god, with the power to back it up. And gods could be capricious, destructive creatures at best. “So you think I’m some kind of spy?” I asked.
“We know it,” Vanya intoned. “My consort here saw you in action. Also, that passport of yours reads like an itinerary of every trouble spot in the world. Besides all that, my technicians took apart those little toys you were carrying.” Vanya shook his head in amusement. “Quite ingenious, actually.”
“What toys?” I said, then shut my mouth with a wince as it hit me: Caitlin. I’d been carrying all the stuff from her purse in my own pockets, and I remembered that mysterious small package she received back at our hotel. There must have been some hidden spy gear in the collection of innocuous-looking items she was carrying, and now Vanya thought that stuff was mine. This is why I never carry a gun or any other obvious weapon while traveling in foreign and hostile countries—at the very least, it makes it hard to pretend innocence if you get caught in the act of carrying out a criminal enterprise while armed.
Fortunately, Vanya was still looking amused at my denials. “All right, so you think I’m a spy,” I said. “So now what
?”
“Relax, Mr. Blake,” Vanya said warmly. “I’m not your enemy. You have nothing to fear from me. But I do want to know what the United States government thought it was doing by sending you to Paris.”
“Something to do with you receiving stolen property, as I recall.”
“They sent a government operative all the way to Europe on account of some suspected petty thievery? That doesn’t seem very likely, now, does it?”
“It might also have something to do with the fact that you’re a big cult leader and all.”
“Cult leader? Is that what they say? Whatever happened to the concept of freedom of religion?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t we ask all those followers of Jim Jones down in Guyana? Or how about those people in the subway in Tokyo who got hit with nerve gas by group called Aum Shinrikyo?”
I kept the corner of my eye on Rhea as I said this, but her smile remained fixed and unfathomable, and I tried to keep my own poker face intact as I wondered just what she had to do to become Vanya’s “consort.” I also realized that if Rhea was an agent of the Japanese government, then the probable reason she’d be here would be the connection between Vanya and the terrorist cult in her country. I glanced at the guard on the other side of Vanya, but he just looked as impassive as the statuary in the garden.
Vanya leaned back on his throne and sighed. “A fair point, I suppose,” he mused. “Given that my former country could not grasp the concept of what I’m trying to accomplish here.” Vanya looked over my shoulder and made a beckoning gesture. A young Hispanic woman wearing a short white toga seemed to materialize on my right with a silver tray bearing my flattened box of cigarettes along with my battered old Zippo lighter. I took a look at Vanya as he said, “Please, avail yourself. Is there anything else you’d like? Something to drink, perhaps?”
